Until I read this article, I had forgotten about the best move of the off-season: getting rid of that freaking bum J*son D*nald. All the rest is just gravy. (Hopefully he won't turn into one of those Jeff Manto types that gets re-signed by the Tribe every year or so when someone else releases him.)

The most important thing is to put yourself in the place to be a part of the conversation. Which it has been a while since they have done that. But they have, and they deserve all of the credit in the world for it.

Now it is up to the 25 guys they will break camp with. If they play well, they will be alive. If they don't they won't.

Govbarney wrote:How did Victorino , and Youk fit this plan? Do you believe they would have been better or worse acquisitions then what the Tribe ended up with?

It looks to me like we would have shot our self's in the foot if we landed them.

Yeah, I'm with you on that one. We can only hope that those offers were intended as more of a message to the guys like Swisher, Bourn, etc that we were serious about spending (hopefully on them). Victorino would have been an okay pickup, but certainly nowhere near that cost. Not sure why he received the first big offer, unless, like I said, it was just to get our names out there in the media as serious spenders. If that was the intent, it certainly succeeded.

Govbarney wrote:How did Victorino , and Youk fit this plan? Do you believe they would have been better or worse acquisitions then what the Tribe ended up with?

It looks to me like we would have shot our self's in the foot if we landed them.

Worse. Far worse. We got lucky. I don't think that the Indians felt that they had a realistic shot at Swisher when they were talking to Victorino and I think they were enamored with Youkilis because he's a better fielder than Reynolds, both at 3B and at 1B. I didn't understand why they were after those guys as hard as they were. The Victorino contract would have been a giant mistake. Victorino also has a relationship with Francona, so it's likely that Francona pushed the issue of trying to get Victorino.

It's interesting. We nearly dealt Cabrera for Bauer, and got him for Choo, who we were going to lose anyway. We got Reynolds instead of Youkilis. We got Swisher instead of Victorino. We got Bourn instead of trying Jason Bay or Scott Hairston. And all of those moves were better for us.

It's possible that the Indians went after Victorino to have one less suitor for Swisher to deal with. I don't know if our front office is savvy enough to play games like that, but the Red Sox were very interested in Swisher and the market for Swisher seemed to collapse a little once Victorino went to Boston.

We played all of our cards right. We used the protected first round pick to our advantage and let the market settle down. We got, in my opinion, the better players and we got them at good value on the dollar. This has been one of the best offseasons in my lifetime. Now, we just need these guys to perform and a couple starters to overperform and we'll have a shot at one of those two wild cards, maybe the Tigers if they get nailed by the injury bug.

A God Damn dead man would understand that if a minor league bus in any city took a real sharp right turn, a Zack McCalister would likely fall out. - Lead Pipe

The big thing for me is I don't feel Detroit is the Shoe in for the division all the media are saying.

With the teams the ALC put on the field last year they should have won 100+ games, even on our darkest days last year they struggled against us, and in the post season, experience and a Verlander Gem got them through the division series, and the Yankees were so shot even the Astro's would have taken a game or 2. The Giants exposed them in the World Series. I actually think the Rangers blew their best chance to win a World Series in 2012.

The Tigers deserve to be ALC favorites, but I don't think as much has to go wrong as people are saying for another team in the ALC to challenge them.